


Bubbles

by walbergr



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Medical Procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:29:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walbergr/pseuds/walbergr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cally contemplates pressure and space. </p>
<p>(originally written for the prompt "bubbles")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bubbles

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks to LanaLucy for her beta on this (long long ago, in a galaxy far far away)

Bubbles form in a glass of champagne because in a sealed bottle, when gas is formed in liquid, it dissolves. When the pressure is released, there’s room for the gas to take up its own space, and it turns to bubbles. 

She has time inside the pressure chamber to think about the bubbles that formed inside of her because of the air she’s breathed, the air that lives in her muscles and blood, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen. The doc has explained the science to her a little bit, and told her what to expect. Aches and pain in her joints, itching in her face, potentially some confusion, dizziness, a dry cough, depending on where the bubbles settle and how long it takes those parts of her to heal. Right now it’s only her left wrist, elbow and shoulder, and the twinges intensify when Galen holds Nicky up to the window, so maybe it’s just a phantom baby aching where she knows he should be. 

When they let her out of the chamber and onto a bed, her hands and ears and nose and toes are wrapped in gauze and the debridement of dead skin is a daily torture. She’s still not holding her Nicky, and it becomes more challenging to forgive Galen, who has no bubbles, no seeping wounds, and no excuses except that he loved her voice and her company more than he loved their son. 

And that may be the difference between them. She’s been under pressure for so long that it doesn’t mean anything to her anymore. Commands, demands, repairs, requisitions. They drive his life, and make her tired. For her, the only thing worth doing is just to make enough space for Nicky to bubble in, no pressure to speak of.


End file.
